Nine days after being adopted out, Tover is back home. The woman had unrealistic expectations of how a cat “should” behave and he wasn’t quick enough on the program apparently. I picked him up late last night and he is still showing uncertainty in his eyes- but he did lay with me earlier and fell asleep on my lap. I am waiting now for him to leap up on me and drape his back leg over my arm- which is his favorite position when I am at the computer.

Cooper, the larger Siamese mix male was adopted out today and there is a couple who is showing an interest in the other three kitties as well. It would be nice to keep them mostly together- but time will tell as I haven’t visited the perspective home yet.

Cooper will live with a widow and her one orange kitty and he should do just fine.

This little black girl is quite sickly and it isn’t because she is carrying some dreaded disease. The only misfortune she suffered was being “rescued” by the clueless. The woman found her the other day in the bushes (she is just about a week old) and because she had fleas, the woman took her in and gave her a bath in COLD water! Her system immediately shut down and her panicked brother called me. I rushed over there to be presented with an almost lifeless-body. I took a rough towel and started to massage her- grabbed their blow dryer and requested they stand back a distance and blow the warm air on the towel. Snots and bubbles came out of this kitten’s mouth and her mouth opened but no sounds came out. I took some coffee and put warm drops on her tongue and rushed her home where we gave her warming fluids. I spent a restless night with her watching over her and feeding her every two hours.

I haven’t even named her yet- she is so weak and lethargic and there isn’t anything anyone can do for her because she is so small and is trying to survive the shock. She is still getting warming fluids and Karo and I mix a bit of coffee in with her KMR. I go to see the feline specialist today with her and I hope that I have done everything right.

The woman said she felt terrible about what she did but she is allergic to fleas and seeing them on this kitten “freaked her out.” She thought the cold water would kill the fleas-well guess what? It stuns them-but it can kill a kitten.

The heartbreak of what I do is telling people no. No, I can’t take 8 cats because the woman is being evicted TOMORROW and she was to distraught to figure out what to do with her cats! No, I can’t take the seven cats who have been dumped up on Whisky Butte Road. I wish I could but the resources are not there, the space is not available and I feel like I am letting the cats down- the people be hanged. They can survive the evictions and the upheavels but the cats are another story.

Who waits for 24 hours before an eviction before figuring out what to do with seven cats they “adore?”

I do have a bottle baby here, she is quite sickly and there will be no photo of her as my camera has suffered a mishap it can’t recover from.

There are possible homes fo Sahara, Fawn, Rayne, and India- but won’t know until the people fill out the necessary paperwork.

And still the phone rings and people plead for me to take their cat(s) and my answer is gentle and heartfelt- but I simply can’t. No room, no pawket money- no resources available at this time-

The four Siamese mix kitties that arrived around Christmas are now all over me at night on the bed. Last night, I was petting each one of them without the usual flight reflex kicking in and discovered that the snowshoe mix and the smallest female are peppered with bb pellets! Not bad enough that someone dumped mom off to have her kittens outside, but after the kittens were born they were used for target practice from some a$$ whole!

The good news is they are going up for adoption this weekend because they finally have figured out that trusting humans is possible-

I received a call from a guy who told me that his wife had unexpectedly divorced him and left behind two cats when she moved. He said he had been trying to get ahold of her for a year, with no results and he is not a cat person and he can’t keep these two siamese anymore. So off I went to pick them up.

I arrived home and put them both upstairs in the kitten room and just let them decompress. They are 6 years old and beautiful seal points.

About an hour later, I went back upstairs to see how they were doing and the minute I opened the door- I had a full- attack mode Siamese in my face! He was scratching and clawing and yowling and biting MAN ALIVE! I am used to that from a stray or a feral but NOT an owner-surrendered cat. There is a large cat bed by the door, and I blindly grabbed it and placed it over my face- shoving the cat away from me and beat a hasty retreat. I sat on the top of the stairs until I stopped shaking. I could hear the cat inside and he was sounding like he was being tortured. He was not a happy kitty.

I called the gentleman back and simply told him I wasn’t going to deal with his cats and what had happened and he LAUGHED! He told me I probably didn’t know what I was doing and the cat in question was a complete love. I told him regardless, I was going to bring the cats to him as soon as I could put them both in a carrier. He told me good luck with that! Then just said drop them in the yard, they will know they are home.

This time I went into the room prepared, with two long sleeve shirts, leather gloves, jeans tucked into my boots and a wool blanket.

In twenty minutes i had both cats inside carriers and out the door. The screeching they made when I was trying to get them inside was loud enough even Mike downstairs heard them- and he can’t hear much of anything these days!

I took them back, dropped them into their yard and apologized to them for doing so because someone has put a lot of hate into these beauties. I am getting older and if they were strays, I would have worked with them- but these are cats that are bonded to one person whether or not he likes it or not. They are already on edge because of the divorce and heaven only knows what this fella did to them when his wife moved out. I have had a lot of siamese here- both older and younger and have never actually been scared of any of them until yesterday. Guess I flunked cat rescue 101 yesterday but at least, I have finally stopped shaking.

Yesterday, Mike and I decided to use a bit of our tax money to go and say goodbye to my Dad. It is over 500 miles to their home and I drove up and back in one day as there was no one available to stay with the cats. All volunteers otherwise busy.

All I can say is I am glad and sad and sorry in one breath that I went, but it was something I needed to do. It built bridges long needed between me and my mother, and as for my dad- well- the man I “met” yesterday was a far cry from the man I remember him to be.

But goodbyes have been said and with a mad dash home- life goes on. I came back to a home only partly demolished by kitties thinking they had been abandoned again and that was a traumatic to witness as the trip was for me to undergo.

I leave with this note: There are no such things as perfect families. Each unit has its flaws even the families whose Christmas portraits hang over the mantel every year. We all get along as best we can, do what we can to survive with the tools we are given to survive. Yesterday, I very much felt like a feral cat fighting to keep alive in my mind the image of the father I knew him once to be and not accepting the man who now puts on his shoes.

Of course on the way as hurried as the trip was- I run into what else- cats in need of help. Another time when my emotions aren’t so close to the surface, I will share the story of the Carl’s Jr cats one which might make many grin and even chortle. As well as on the return trip in the town of Weed running into rest stop kitties who were starving and who “no one” could get close to…well guess who did?

Are they added to my family now? no, but I have alerted other cat lovers in the area of their existence and hopefully soon they will be safe in their new families.

Love each other as if tomorrow is only a promise and hug your furry friends tight-

Please keep voting and ask your friends to do the same or I may slip down a notch. They changed their format so when you get to the link, look at the toolbar below the purple button see the shelter challenge click there for a pull-down menu then click vote for shelter. Find CATS Inc in Oregon and click to vote then validate. Getting down to the wire and I am in so close to gaining some ground-

Vote here

He hasn’t recently had anyone who gave a hang about him.
He was left to fend for himself outside while trying to avoid being poisoned
Today, Sebastian lost his fight and was put to sleep
It happened so fast, my head is still trying to process it all
Couldn’t afford to let him suffer any longer- he had been suffering mightily for 24 hours
Suspect he had gotten into the poisons set up around the park to get rid of “nuisance cats.”
They got their wish, he paid with his life

Bye sweet boy- I will see you again

The little black kitten I found a year ago in the trash has now found a new, forever home. He was adopted tonight by a no-nonsense lady and her grand-daughter. I have to laugh at her expectations of him and her other cat- but nothing I said seemed to penetrate her mind. I know she loves cats and is good to them- her kitty is evidence of that-plus she uses my vet which is where she heard about me in the first place.

I will miss this black devil- he had the oddest habit of when I was working on the computer, he would jump up in my lap and take his back left leg and drape it over my left arm and fall asleep like that!

Here he is the first day of his arrival here-

Wish I was talking about a spider or an ant, but I am talking about a virus I found myself wrestling with. It put me down- I was wondering if I was going to walk upright ever again! And I took a flu shot too-

On the Google front- they think she just has a high sensitivity to any type of food. Have tried her on everything under the sun including raw and her body just can’t digest it well. They ordered some new enzymes for us to try and beyond that it would mean more bloodwork and questions being sought. She did inhale an chicken mcnugget the other day- snatched it right out of Mike’s hand and ran under the couch with it! Silly kitty…

On the Cyclone level additional bloodwork shows he had blood in his urine, low white cell count and very concentrated urine as well so he is on antibiotics and pain killers. He is gaining weight he is 10 pounds now.

I am so grateful for the personal emails and messages checking on our status- but honestly- it hurt to move and laying in bed seemed like a much better option.

I have found a home for Truman and Tover but Truman came down ill and I won’t adopt out a sick cat so until his eye clears up he is here. Tover leaves this weekend to spend his life with a lovely lady who just lost her 17 year old black kitty to cancer.

Speaking of Truman he has a vet appointment now so I have to go-